Specail Visitor

This week on Wednesday my class had a special visitor. Her name is Thelma Eakin. Thelma is a book author, she wrote the book called The Mines afire. It is a book about the Brunner Mine site. Thelma Eakin came in to answer some of our questions about the book. Thelma also showed us a lamp called a safety lamp that they used in the mine but sometimes they used a open flame. One interesting thing that she told us is that the teacher used to lock the door of the classroom to go fishing.

brunner mine site

Monday just gone my class went to the Brunner mine site and it has a lot of history. We have been reading a book about it called mines Afire it is about the Brunner mine explosion that killed 65 men and boys. After we visited the mine site we went to the still water cemetery where 33 of the miners where buried. The rest where either in family plots or buried at the greymouth cemetery. At the still water cemetery there is something called a mass grave that is where the 33 miners where buried together. At the Brunner mine site we had to role play what happened and also at the still water cemetery we had to pay respect and read some of the names of the dead miners. Here is a location and a photo of the Brunner mine site.